


Heir to the Throne

by 221bdragonslayer



Series: Princess Diaries AU [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Inspired by Princess Diaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-04 02:42:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15832107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221bdragonslayer/pseuds/221bdragonslayer
Summary: According to her mom, teachers, and best friend Leopold Fitz, teenage genius Jemma Simmons can do no wrong in the lab. However, when it comes to being a perfect princess or navigating the affairs of the heart, that's another story.  A Princess Diaries (movie) AU.





	1. Chapter 1

Jemma Simmons stepped into the entrance to the garage, smiled, and allowed herself to exhale. Few people might find the scents of motor oil and gasoline comforting, but here was the only place she wanted to come after a long day of classes and not-so-quiet whispers of “teacher’s pet.”

Her best friend Daisy Johnson, who had been chattering the whole walk home from school after her newest Internet transparency campaign, bounced happily past her.

“Hey, baby,” she crooned to the ancient red convertible whose guts were scattered around the room. “How’s surgery, Fitz?”

The shuffling behind the raised hood continued for another three seconds, then Jemma caught a glimpse of Fitz’s messy curls, clear blue eyes, and a brilliant grin.

“She should be ready tomorrow,” the tall high school student sitting on a stool nearby answered for Fitz, setting down one of Lola’s vital organs and rubbing fingertips stained with grease against his jeans.

“Thanks for taking good care of her, Mack,” Daisy said, hopping nimbly up over the car door and plopping down in the seat. Lola, who was given to her by Steve May— the first foster parent who had ever acted like a father to her—was her most prized possession.

When a man who was frequently away on business trips had wanted a foster child to keep his new wife company until he could settle down, neither he nor Daisy had expected to become as fond of each other as they had. They texted every night when he was away and had father/daughter dates when he wasn’t. Jemma herself was terrified at the very idea of keeping stern Melinda May, former security guard, _company_ and didn’t know anyone who wasn’t. However, bubbly, persistent Daisy hadn’t been intimidated, and now Melinda May was giving her dating advice and self-defense lessons (where the two overlapped, Jemma wasn’t sure she wanted to know).

As for Fitz, he had been Daisy’s friend ever since she had been a scrappy kid in elementary wearing faded jeans and a too-small t-shirt, passed from home to home and taunted endlessly for it by bullies. He was still happy to help her however he could, even when it was spending his free time in the garage working on her beloved Lola. He was in the garage almost every hour in which he wasn’t eating, sleeping, or going to school anyway, helping the owner’s son Mack in exchange for his small band being allowed to use the space on Saturday nights.

That was how Jemma Simmons had met Fitz a year ago: Daisy pulling her to the garage after school, excited to see that month’s round of repairs on Lola. “Come on, Jemma! I’ll just be a minute, and you’ll like the guy who does my repairs. He’s a genius, too.”

And he was. Jemma couldn’t tell from the words Fitz had spoken because he hadn’t spoken more than fifteen to her and tripped over each one, but she didn’t have to. She could tell from the fingers that fumbled and dropped his water bottle while he talked to her, but that were steady, quick, and confident once they were deep inside a car motor. She could tell from the light of understanding in his eyes as Mack’s father stepped into the garage and reeled off a diagnosis for a 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee with more mechanical jargon than a doctor had in a medical text book. And Jemma Simmons was fascinated.

She had come in one day to find him on a break, sketching a diagram. When she asked him about it, he explained that it was a “night-night” gun—a theoretical, nonlethal way to take someone down that he’d designed himself after a conversation with Mrs. Melinda about her years on the force.

“That’s a brilliant idea!” she had exclaimed and promptly starting reeling off the benefits of a dendrotoxin she had been studying and how it would work better with his delivery mechanism than the sedative marked in his notes.

Seeing the light in her eyes, he’d started talking to her then—his sentences fast and long and intertwining perfectly with hers— and he’d never shut up since. Jemma didn’t think she ever wanted him to.

Now, she managed to find a place to sit on the floor that was devoid of car parts and mainly clean. Eagerly, she began pulling diagrams of their latest project out of her bag: a drone that gathered olfactory data, or, as Daisy had less scientifically termed it, “The Sniffer.” With her avid interest in biology and his knowledge of machines, both were certain that they could impress any college of their choice with their end result.

“So, I had some ideas for the drone. I thought maybe you could come over again tonight and we could work on it in the lab when you’re off the clock,” Jemma offered after they had chatted for a while. Daisy—having gotten her Lola update and flirted with a member of Fitz’s band who had come early to help set up— had already started home.

“Yeah, sure!” Fitz said brightly. He reached over to help her scoop up the sheets of diagrams; she lightly swatted his blackened hand away before he could smudge them.

Her thoughts were still tightly wrapped around diagrams and formulas as she trudged up the steps to her house: hence why she didn’t notice the fancy car parked in the street. Frederick Sanger (her cat, not the biochemist who had won the Nobel Prize for his work on protein structure) slithered between her ankles as she stepped inside.

“Jemma!” her mother called.

On her way to her makeshift lab in the basement and already thinking about what equipment she needed to prepare before Fitz’s arrival, Jemma barely heard.

“Jemma!” her mother called again, slightly less patiently.

She turned with her eyebrows raised and the apple that she had snatched from the counter halfway to her mouth. Promptly, she almost dropped it as she saw who was sitting at their table.

Jemma’s fingers flew to adjust the wrinkled plaits of her skirt and cover the grease spots as subtly as they could. “Grandma,” she said with a polite and hopefully not too flustered smile. She gestured at the lab reports poking out of the corner of her bag. “If you’ll excuse me—"

“Your homework can wait, Jemma. Your grandmother wishes to speak with you.”

Surprised, Jemma plopped her bag down and slid into the seat next to her mother. She studied her face carefully and curiously, but—except for the stiffness at the corners of her smile— she could find no hint in her mother’s face of what the anomaly of her grandmother’s sudden visit could mean. To her knowledge, the grandmother who hadn’t approved of her parents’ marriage hadn’t visited since Jemma’s father had left when she was a baby.

Her grandmother took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders, as if her posture wasn’t already flawless. “Jemma, I’m here to tell you about why your father left after your birth. We didn't mean to tell you until your eighteenth birthday, but the car accident has made it necessary.”

A few minutes later, Jemma Simmons learned that she was Jemma Mignonette Grimaldi Simmons Renaldo, closest heir to the throne of Genovia.

 

* * *

 

She only paused to flip the sign to _Experiments in Progress: Do Not Enter!_ before she slammed the door.

“Jemma Simmons, you’re the closest heir. Without you, Genovia will not have a ruler to crown at the Genovian Ball, and Baron Mallick is just waiting for such a circumstance. Genovia needs you!” implored her grandmother’s muffled voice.

“Here, let me see if I can get her to come out. Shouting through the door will do nothing to resolve this,” Jemma heard her mother interrupt.

“I was not shouting,” the queen said with great dignity.

Jemma—because she most definitely was not a queen and was therefore not afraid to call shouting what it was— _shouted_ back. “All these years, and you never told me the truth! I thought all my life that my dad was just a jerk who didn’t care about me enough to stay.”

“Jemma, I’m sorry. But whether you listen as a favor to Genovia or as a favor to me—”

“Why,” Jemma asked, her voice firm and very well heard even though, now very primly in accordance with her grandmother’s sensibilities, she did not shout. “Should I do you any favors when you have never done any for me?”

With that final word, she tramped down the basement steps and disappeared into her lab. Those last words had been harsh: even though they had been spoken out of hurt and not malice, Jemma regretted them. 

It wasn’t even three minutes before her mother had picked the lock with her credit card, and Jemma was thinking that she needed to ask Fitz to rig her up a better method of security.

She didn’t look up at the sound of her mother’s steps on the stairs, keeping her eyes focused on the dropper in her hand and squeezing a few more drops of solution into the vial. “I am in the middle of an experiment.” Fitz would be here in another twenty minutes, and they would need a solution to test the chemical identification capabilities on the drone.

Her mother sighed. “Jemma, please just hear your grandmother out.”

Jemma set down the dropper and swiveled in her chair, pushing her goggles up onto her head. “I have heard what she has to say, but I don’t think she has heard what I’ve been saying. I don’t want to be princess.”

How could she be the ruler of a country, she who couldn’t even find a date because she got too excited about science and spoke at the pace of her thoughts (in other words, too fast for most to understand)? She who everybody shunned for being too smart and being too young (she had skipped several grades) and laughed at for flailing during PE softball? She could just see herself bored out of her mind making small talk with barons, burning a hole in a thousand-dollar dress during a science experiment gone wrong, or making an accurate imitation of a dying chicken while trying to be graceful on the dance floor.

“I’m just not princess material,” Jemma groaned.

She could practically hear the gears turning in her mother’s head as she stood on the basement steps, halfway between her mother in law above and her daughter below. “What if your grandmother could make you princess material?” she asked. “What if she gives you lessons about how to be a princess until the Genovian Ball, and then you make your decision?”

Thoughtfully, Jemma traced the raised lines of measurement on her beaker with a gloved finger. That wasn’t asking too much, and it wasn’t like she would be making a lifelong commitment. Besides, she had heard less than reputable things about Baron Gideon Malick. According to Daisy’s extensive, Internet-fueled knowledge of scandals, no one should trust him any further than they could kick him, much less on a throne.

“All right,” she said reluctantly. “I’ll wait until the Ball to decide.”

“Is that acceptable to you, Clarisse?” her mother asked.

“Well, I don’t have any other choice,” Grandmother replied with a resigned sigh. “We’ll start tomorrow.”

 

* * *

 

The princess lessons and Jemma’s true heritage were to be kept secret, and Jemma Simmons suddenly being picked up at school by a limo didn’t fall under the heading of secret. So she was instructed to take her usual route home, drop Daisy off at her apartment as usual, and she would be picked up about a quarter mile from there. Her new bodyguard would be there every day to take her to the Genovian consulate and then return her home after the lessons.

Jemma was glad that she was at least allowed to keep this measure of her independence. As she walked to the pickup point, she found that she would rather think about anything but fancy dresses and polite conversation and her upcoming lessons. Instead, she calculated the number of calories that a girl of her height and weight burned during a walk that was half a mile shorter.

The limo was already waiting for her when she arrived. A short, bald man wearing a dark shirt, black leather jacket, and a pair of sunglasses was leaning against the car: he looked like a secret agent, Jemma thought.

He heard her footsteps and straightened, offering her a smile. “Are you Miss Jemma Simmons?”

“Yes.”

“I am Philip Coulson, your grandmother’s head of security. I will be your bodyguard for the next several weeks. You may call me Coulson, if that pleases you.” He opened the door and gestured inside the limo. “Ready, Miss Simmons?”

She nodded and slid onto the leather seat. “Thank you. You can call me Jemma.”

“In that case, you’re welcome, Jemma.”

He was wearing an earpiece and spoke to a subordinate the whole way to the consulate. Jemma listened carefully, trying to unravel the complex code he was using and determine what in the world the numbers “0-8-4” stood for. She thought that she was just beginning to make some progress in understanding the code when they pulled up outside her grandmother’s residence.

“Good afternoon, Jemma,” Grandmother greeted her. She stood at the top of a set of tall marble steps, holding her folded hands demurely in front of her and wearing a pleasant smile. “The first order we must address today is your posture,” she said, leading her to the sitting room. “Excellent posture is essential for a princess to appear graceful.”

It was also important for minimizing the stress on the ligaments holding together the joints of the spine, preventing too much wear on the surfaces of the joints, and allowing the muscles to work more efficiently to limit fatigue, all of which seemed far more important to Jemma than grace.

Jemma scowled. Maybe she did sit with her back hunched because she was used to bending over a project. Maybe she did walk with her shoulders stooped because she was used to multitasking and leaning over one of Fitz’s tablets to read the drones’ data while she walked. That didn’t mean that she had no idea what good posture meant. Her grandmother certainly did not need to use her hands to adjust the position of Jemma’s head so her ears were in line with her shoulders or glide across the room modelling proper posture.

Finally, when her grandmother had watched her walk across the room for the twentieth time, she gave Jemma a look of approval: a look that would have been just as appropriate if she had been surveying her poodle after a grooming instead of her granddaughter. “That will do! Now, time for tea.”

Tea? Jemma perked up. For her, no day was complete without time spent in her lab and a steaming cup of tea.

Unfortunately, the flavorful, delicious, and very expensive blend that she was served came with a price: polite conversation and proper manners.

“Jemma, it is not polite to make that face, no matter how dry the biscuits are.”

“Jemma, dear, you do not feign interest very convincingly.”

“Jemma, perhaps the human digestive system is not the most appropriate topic while we are eating.”

“Yes, Grandmother,” Jemma replied each time, smiling politely as she slipped small sandwiches and scones into the handkerchief on her lap. She managed to smuggle a small feast out when Coulson arrived at the door to escort her home.

She found that Fitz was already sitting on the sofa when she walked into her living room. He glanced up when he heard the door open, his face lighting up with a smile with he saw her. “Hi!”

“Hi!” Jemma replied. Frederick Sanger jumped off Fitz’s lap, leaving his cardigan speckled with cat fur, and sauntered over to her. When he mewed and offered her his most pitiful, hungry stare, she relented and gave him a tidbit of chicken from the sandwiches.

“Sorry I’m late. My grandmother wanted me to have tea with her,” Jemma said. She sighed, dropping her bag on the floor with a loud thud and plopping down on the couch beside Fitz. “I brought some for you.”

“Oi!” Fitz exclaimed, happily helping himself to the small (if slightly squashed) feast she held out to him. “You’re a queen, Simmons,” he mumbled around a mouthful of chicken salad.

 _Not yet_ , she thought, stifling a groan. And possibly not ever. If she had to make her decision after today, Jemma knew what her answer would be.

“They’re delicious,” Fitz said into her thoughts, licking the last few crumbs off his fingers. He could inhale food faster than any other human that Jemma had seen. “But not as good as that sandwich you make.”

The tight knots in Jemma’s shoulder and stomach were starting to unwind, and she laughed.

“Only you, Fitz,” she said fondly. 

“Only me, what?”

 _Only he would prefer her concoctions over a royal chief’s._ “Oh, nothing,” Jemma replied quickly. “Shall we go down to the lab and finish those tests that we started yesterday for The Sniffer?” (Daisy’s name had stuck.)

Fitz leapt up with an eager nod, grabbing her bag for her even though she was pretty certain his muscles were even smaller than hers. “I had a new idea to improve the data stream last night. I can’t wait to try it out as soon as we—”

“—are done working through some of the kinks for the chemical analysis,” Jemma finished as they tromped down the steps. “It seems to work fine identifying basic chemicals based on their scent—”

“— but it struggles when it has to identify the components of say, a compound.” Fitz nodded. “I thought that maybe we could improve its capabilities by—”

Jemma frowned for a moment—unable to tell where he had been going with that sentence— before she realized that Fitz hadn’t paused because he was waiting for her to finish it. He had paused because his jaw had hit the floor. Jemma followed his gaze, and her eyes widened.

“Jemma,” Fitz breathed, stepping into the lab to run his fingers over a shiny, brand-new microscope with ten times the features as her old one. “When did you get all this new equipment?”

“I—I don’t know,” Jemma said, bewildered. Then her eyes fell on an embossed envelope resting on the table, bearing in her name in a lavish, flowing script. She quickly ripped it open and read the note inside. “It’s from my grandmother!”

“Before today, I didn’t know you had one,” Fitz replied, curiously trying to peek over her shoulder.

“She didn’t approve of my parents’ marriage, and she never visited—before or after the divorce. But my dad—he died two months ago. And now my grandma wants to make amends. I guess this is her way of doing that.” It was close enough to the truth that, even being a terrible liar, Jemma didn’t stammer over the words or blush. Nonetheless, she turned her face away from Fitz: he could read her like no one else could. Even though there was no scientific proof for the possibility of psychic links, as she had explained primly, sometimes Jemma _almost_ wondered if her and Fitz’s minds were linked as Daisy had once claimed.

Fitz’s attention was no longer fixed on the equipment. “I’m sorry about your dad, Jemma,” he said softly.

Jemma unexpectedly found that her hands were shaking, and she hastily set down the envelope. She opened her mouth to speak, but all the emotions that she hadn’t even had time to think about rose thick and warm in her throat.

Fitz hesitated, then his warm fingers slipped through hers. Jemma swallowed and squeezed them tightly.

“I never knew him, Fitz. I thought he was just a jerk who didn’t care enough about his wife or his baby to stay. To settle down.” For a moment, she hesitated: that was exactly what Fitz’s father had been. The last thing she wanted was to remind him of painful memories. But his bright blue eyes showed nothing but that he was listening, and he offered her an encouraging nod.

“My dad wasn’t a jerk,” Jemma said, taking a deep, shaky breath. “He left because he had a really good reason. And all these years, my mom and grandma never told me.”

They had their reason for that, too: to give her a normal childhood. That was perfectly rational, and Jemma should be able to understand that because she was a rational person, but her heart still ached at the bitter impression she had carried of her father for all those years. She knew now that he had loved her, but it was too late to remedy those uncharitable thoughts. Now, he was dead.

“He would understand, Jemma,” Fitz said quietly. “He would be proud of you.”

Jemma smiled through her tears, swallowing them down and giving Fitz’s hand a final squeeze. “Now,” she said brightly, forcing a note of cheerfulness into her voice. “Shall we test some of this lovely new equipment?”


	2. Chapter 2

After her grandmother’s goodwill gesture and the evening with Fitz to process her feelings, Jemma decided that maybe her princess lessons with Grandmother weren’t so bad after all.

Her newfound friendship with Coulson alone made it more bearable. She cracked his code after two days, and he began inventing newer and increasingly harder ones just to see how long it took her to figure them out. On the rides to and from the consulate, he always had an ear ready (the one unoccupied by the ear piece) to listen to the woes and joys of princess training, of being far younger than her classmates and far too smart for her own good, and of anything that was on her mind, really.

Grandmother herself was impressed with Jemma’s effort, if not her execution. _This is a challenge_ , Jemma reminded herself at the start of each lesson. And even if it wasn’t her usual type, Jemma Simmons did love a challenge.

However, the lessons consumed more and more time. A student less intelligent than Jemma wouldn’t have been able to cram all her studying and assignments into the short evenings when she was already tired from a long day. She finally had a half hour to herself one evening and invited Fitz to her lab again, but he arrived to find the pot of tea she had brewed for them rapidly cooling and Jemma with her head resting on the table, fast asleep. She didn’t wake up until the next morning: the only signs that Fitz had been there were the empty tea kettle, some more notes on the drone diagram, and the blanket tucked around her shoulders.

However, sworn to confidentiality, she couldn’t explain to him or to Daisy where all her spare time had gone. Fitz accepted her excuses with uncharacteristic quietness; Daisy did not.

When her subtle prodding availed her nothing, Daisy’s frustration escalated. Then, one day, it boiled over.

Fitz was on duty in the garage, Jemma was keeping him company, and Daisy was there to check on yet another round of Lola’s repairs. Sitting on Lola’s hood and chugging a Coke, she shot a fierce scowl at Jemma. “All right, cut the crap.”

It came so completely out of the blue that Jemma almost dropped the wrench that she was holding for Fitz. “Excuse me?”

“You always have an excuse when I want to hang out after school. And you’re an awful liar. I can tell when you lie. Every time. And you don’t even have Fitz over anymore to do whatever you geniuses do in that lab down there.” Daisy crossed her arms. “What’s really going on, Jemma?”

Fitz’s cheeks were red, and he looked as if he longed to disappear. He grabbed the wrench from her and did the closest thing by sliding under Lola. “You don’t have to explain to me, Simmons,” he mumbled, fiddling in the car’s belly. “It’s fine if you don’t want to hang out with me.”

“What? Fitz, of course I do!”

With some effort, Fitz extracted himself from under the convertible and huffed a frustrated sigh. His clear blue eyes met hers. “Simmons, if there’s another guy you would rather spend time with, it’s fine. Really.” He sighed again, tiredly running his hands through his curls. “But…I do wish you would have just told me instead of making up all those excuses.”

Honor student Jemma Simmons, who didn’t have even one detention to her name, didn’t like to break rules. But when her two best friends were staring at her with that hurt in their eyes, she decided it was time to break one.

“All right, I’ll tell you the truth. But you must promise not to tell anyone.”

“Of course,” Daisy said, and Fitz nodded warily.

“My father was actually a prince of Genovia. When he died two months ago, I was left as the closest heir to the throne. I promised my grandmother—the queen of Genovia—that I would let her train me to be a princess up until the Genovian Independence Day Ball. Then, I would make my decision about whether or not to accept the crown.”

For a long moment that was filled only by the tick of Fitz’s watch, they stared at her.

Daisy broke the silence. “Is that really the truth, Jemma?” she asked in disbelief.

“You said yourself that you can tell whether or not each word that comes out of my mouth is a lie. You tell me: is it?” Jemma asked, staring back just as hard.

Fitz’s watch ticked for five more seconds.

Then, Daisy squealed and leapt off Lola. “You’re a princess! That is _so_ cool!” She threw her arms around Jemma and hugged her tight.

“Well, not for sure yet,” Jemma reminded her. She patiently endured her friend’s squeeze for another moment before gently slipping out of her grasp. “I still have to make my choice.”

Daisy nodded, suddenly sober again. “Because princess today means queen tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah. While I’m a princess, I can study science and experiment and play, but if I chose to be a princess, that means I am also accepting to one day perform the duties of queen. Yesterday, I researched queens who made important scientific breakthroughs.” For some reason, she found herself seeking Fitz’s eyes as she felt again the sinking sensation that she had in the pit of her stomach staring at the search results.  “There were none.”

His eyes were fixed on her as if no one and nothing else in the world existed at that moment but her. “Then, Jemma Simmons,” he said with complete confidence, “you’ll be the first.”

Overcome with gratitude, she leaned over to plant an impulsive kiss on his cheek. “Thank you, Fitz.”

“Ah, er, you’re welcome,” he stammered, cheeks flushing bright pink.

Beginning during Fitz’s break that day, the two of them began drawing plans for the lab that Jemma should order built in the palace. She had photographs of the palace from her grandmother, and he had a schematic of it that Daisy found online. After much study, they decided exactly where to construct it and begin making lists of the lab equipment she would need and could afford with her new royal budget. It was all hypothetical: Jemma still had no idea if she really wanted to be a princess, but somehow sitting and sketching and laughing with Fitz and thinking about the previously unconsidered privileges of royalty for a scientist made her think that maybe a part of her did.

 

* * *

 

Jemma’s heart sank when she saw the record player set up in the corner and Coulson hovering in the next room.

Without thinking, she blurted out, “I hate dancing.”

“Don’t worry. My love used to say the same, but I think I’ve gotten her to change her mind.” Coulson smiled, then gently took Jemma’s hand and guided it to his waist. “We’ll start out nice and simple with a generic slow dance. The official Genovian dances can come later.”

However, even Coulson’s patience couldn’t make Jemma competent at dancing. She tripped, flailed, and stumbled her way through the allotted hour. The session effectively ended when her elbow met Coulson’s nose. Forcibly.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Jemma said guiltily. First aid and the chapter in her book on medical science had been her favorites at school: the knowledge had been well put to use, but determining that Coulson’s nose wasn’t broken hadn’t soothed her conscience.

“Dat’s all right,” Coulson replied, his voice muffled under the bloody cloth and ice pack that he was holding to his face. He raised them long enough to attempt a reassuring smile, which promptly turned into a wince. “It ’as an accident.”

For the first time in weeks, Jemma came home from princess lessons feeling like a failure.

“Oh, Fitz,” she groaned when he came over that night, and they were sitting in the lab. “I will never, ever be a perfect princess.”

“There’s no such things as a perfect princess. Or a perfect scientist. But you’re a perfectly wonderful Jemma Simmons, and…no one could ask for anything better than that,” Fitz blurted out in one breath. He was doing that stance with his feet far apart and his arms crossed, the one he always did when he was daring her to argue with him.

In spite of herself, a smile tugged at her lips.

The stubborn set of Fitz’s lips eased into a grin. He pirouetted—if tripping and almost falling into a table of chemicals could be called that. Jemma couldn’t hold back her laughter. “Ugh, Fitz, I don’t look like that!”

“Just substitute Coulson for that beaker, and I think that is exactly it!” He smirked, then suddenly the quirk of his lips was bashful. His eyes moved from her face to the drone parts scattered on the table, which he began fiddling with. “Actually…uh, Jemma…about that…I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“What is it, Fitz?” she asked, half curious and half worried. He hadn’t been this shy around her since that fateful day they met in the garage.

Fitz set down the parts and forced himself to bring his eyes up to meet hers. “The guys and I—the band—we’re having a concert in two weeks, on Tuesday night. It’s kinda special this time, and I was wondering if you wanted to come.”

Jemma exhaled and laughed. Was that all? “Of course, Fitz,” she said. “I would love to hear you and the band play.”

The tension went out of Fitz’s shoulders, and he laughed too. “Yeah? I’m glad.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I’m glad,” he snorted. “Oh, yes, very clever, Fitz. Not lame at all.”

He was at the garage for practice, tuning his instrument and running every word of their discussion through his head while he waited for the other members of the band. Dancing in the lab, he decided, was on a whole new level and therefore unjudgeable. All he knew was that he would make a fool of himself any day to hear Jemma’s laugh.

“I take it you finally got up the courage to ask her,” Mack said with a chuckle. He had just finished his last engine job for the day and was preparing to leave.

Fitz plucked at the strings of his instrument, the sound melancholy. He sighed. “Yeah, I did.”

“She couldn’t have said no??” his friend asked incredulously.

“Oh, you know. She really wished to come and all, but she’s already got plans—” However, he couldn’t stop the huge grin that he could feel spreading from ear to ear.

“You’re ribbing me, Turbo!” Mack exclaimed. He swiped his greasy hand against a rag, tossed it carelessly into the corner, and offered Fitz a mostly clean high-five.

“I’m—I’m going to dedicate our new song to her,” Fitz said, most _definitely_ not blushing. “She’s who I had in mind the whole time we wrote it, actually.”

A laugh from the door made him jump; fellow band member Lincoln stepped inside and grinned. “That isn’t exactly a secret, man. Why else would you write a song called ‘Chemistry’?”


	3. Chapter 3

Her grandmother informed Jemma that in less than two weeks, she would be attending her first state dinner at the consulate.

“Are you sure I’m…ready?” Jemma asked with a wince.

“Of course. It’s just a state supper after all, not the Ball.”

She had to wear a stylish gown, pin her curls up, and make polite conversation with dozens of diplomats and barons. It might as well have been the ball or even the official coronation when the ruler was sworn in at twenty-one years old, as far as Jemma was concerned. 

“You’ll do just fine,” her grandmother said reassuringly. “But all the same, I’ve enlisted some help. Mr. Radcliff?”

She clapped her hands, and a short, pale man appeared from around the corner as if the queen had conjured him out of thin air. Trailing him was his assistant, wearing a pair of sunglasses and a shiny dress that was rather gaudy but perfectly showed off her long, elegant legs. Radcliff rubbed the scruff of his beard nervously, eyes running up and down Jemma.

“Oh, she’s pretty,” he said, walking in slow circles around her and studying her as if she were some kind of lab specimen. “The right hairstyle, a gown, and why…she’ll be pretty as a princess! Though that is rather the objective, isn’t it?” He rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Well, then, shall we get started designing your look for the supper, Miss Simmons?”

For the next hour, Jemma modeled hairstyles and gowns.

“No, no, no, Jemma!” Radcliffe yelped for the tenth time and the tenth gown. “I mean, sit down _gently_ , Miss Simmons. You’ll crush the silk. Erm, no. I don’t think that is your color. Try this one. Ready yet? Yes, the buttons on that one are quite a hassle, I know, but it’s faster with practice. Come on out. _Delicate_ steps, Miss Simmons. You’re wearing slippers, not combat boots. Aida?” he asked, casting a desperate look at his assistant.

“Yes, Mr. Radcliffe.” Aida rose and demonstrated, strutting primly across the room.

Jemma attempted to copy the graceful sway of the young woman’s hips. Aida, Radcliffe, and her grandmother winced in silent unison: it didn’t require the abilities of a telepath to discern that they thought she looked intoxicated.

When she sighed in resignation and stretched out her arms to accept another gown, Jemma frowned in surprise at the bathrobe Radcliffe placed in her hands. “This is a…unique choice for a state dinner,” she offered diplomatically.

“But not for a manicure and pedicure,” Radcliffe said, placing his hands on her shoulders and firmly escorting her back to the dressing room. When she emerged wearing the robe (it was very comfortable, part of her _did_ wish she could wear it to the dinner), he waved her over to the special reclining chair that Aida had just brought in. For someone with a waist the size of a toothpick, she was surprisingly strong. “Just sit down here, Your Highness, and we’ll get straight to work.”

“I’ll tell you a secret. The cucumbers slices don’t actually do anything. We made it up,” Radcliffe said cheerfully, trying to put her at ease while he scrubbed her feet and massaged lotion between her toes.

Jemma raised one of the cucumbers that he had placed on her face to glance down at him. “I always thought the ascorbic and caffeic acids in cucumbers reduced the water retention of the eyes, preventing swelling. And the juice can help stimulate antioxidant activity—”

“Erm, maybe,” Radcliffe said. Aida’s finger firmly slid the cucumber back down over Jemma’s eye.

 

* * *

 

 

Yesterday’s trial with the gowns made Jemma more grateful than she’d ever thought she’d be for the relative simplicity of her school uniform and the mere three minutes it took to pull on.

“Bye, Mom!” she called, stuffing her science homework into her bag and running out the door. “Bye, Frederick Sanger.”

Daisy was waiting outside the door, leaning against the sun-warmed red bricks of Jemma's home while her fingers flew across her phone screen. When she heard the door click shut behind Jemma, she stowed the phone in her pocket and pushed off from the wall with her foot. “Wow, Jemma,” she said, her eyes lingering on her friend’s hands as they trudged down the sidewalk. “Someone got a _makeover_.”

Usually her fingertips were stained with chemicals and the nails worn down from biting them as she thought, and Radcliffe had sighed over them in dismay yesterday. Today, though, they were soft, clean, and glowing.

“Grandmother insisted,” Jemma said with a sigh. “I have to go to a royal state dinner party.”

“Sounds fun, as long as there’s free wifi. By the way, Jem, you know what I thought would be fun to have on my show? That would reel in a few more views? A real live princess.” Daisy turned to her hopefully, raising one eyebrow and waiting impatiently for a response.

Daisy was the host for the cable show Stand Up and Tweet, on which she discussed everything related to the world-wide web: how laws on freedom of speech extended to the Internet, what the best way to utilize social media in an anti-bullying or student body president campaign was, whether hacktivism was a criminal activity or civil duty.

Jemma sighed. “All right.” It was the least she could do to make it up for how little time she had to hang out with Daisy now, thanks to princess lessons."But what does a princess have to do with...Internet stuff?"

Daisy squealed and triumphantly pumped the air with one fist, slinging her other arm around Jemma. “I don't know, but I'll think of something. You’re the best, you know that? How about the Tuesday after the next?”

“That should be fine. Fitz has asked me to go to a concert that night”—she wondered why Daisy was giving her that grin— “But I can stop by for a little while before then.”

Daisy began to reply but paused, raising a hand to shade her face and frowning as she stared at the school building ahead of them. “Huh. What’s with the crowd?”

And then someone must have got sight of Jemma because there was a shriek of “There she is! The princess!”

It took a moment for Jemma’s brain to register the title before she realized all eyes had turned toward her. It took another moment before she remembered that the press shouldn’t even know that title belonged to her.

As Jemma walked forward, they converged on her like ants around a bread crumb, battering away with questions from all sides. She could hardly have answered their queries if she’d wanted to: the sound of individual words and sentences blurred together into one loud, tumultuous clash of noise.

Jemma was ready to say something about how _I have class to attend, so excuse me, please let me through_ , but it was as if the reporters had read the thought that she was going to open her mouth. Promptly, a dozen microphones were shoved in her face, and she blinked at them.

“Excuse us, we’re going to be late!” Daisy yelled, coming to her rescue. “Excuse me, pardon me, excuse me!” She grabbed Jemma’s arm and hauled her through the crowd, stomping on more than one foot and elbowing more than one side along the way.

The principle greeted them both, hastily herding the two girls into her office. “The queen is coming. Here,” Mrs. Hand said. The principal was normally completely composed, her spine and the line of her lips impeccably straight, as she dealt with any challenges that high school students could mete out.  However, even she was sounding slightly dazed as she dropped into her swivel chair and slid behind her desk.

“How could the press have found out?” Jemma murmured in dismay. She hadn’t told anyone but Fitz and Daisy—

Daisy, following the same thought process, bit her lip. “I didn’t tell, Jemma, I swear,” she whispered.

She was sent out of the office to go to one of her classes that she would soon be in missing, although not before she eagerly murmured to Jemma that, hey, they could discuss the paparazzi and respecting the privacy of celebrities with content posted on the Internet on Shut Up and Tweet!

The queen arrived several minutes later under Coulson’s protective eye, commandeered Mrs. Hand’s desk, and gracefully accepted tea from her.

“Don’t worry, we will figure this out,” she reassured them all.

Not too much later, Coulson ushered in a second guest and the answer to their questions.

“Radcliffe,” the queen said, making resting her forehead in her hand look graceful.

“Yes, it was I who outed you to the press, so to speak. But there wasn’t any money! Well, maybe a little,” he muttered, then hastily added, “But that isn’t the point! I was just proud to have served the princess, and undoubtedly you know what serving a princess does for one’s reputation…”

Coulson put one arm around his shoulders and very firmly escorted him back out.

Once the queen had left, Jemma allowed herself to breath, and the day started settling back into its normal patterns. However, from the looks that she was getting in the halls, she suspected that normal meant something totally different for Jemma Simmons, known heir to the throne of Genovia, instead of Jemma Simmons, perfectly average high school student except for being the smallest girl and the biggest science nerd at school.

Confirming her hypothesis, a locker slammed shut loudly behind her.

 “Congratulations, Jemma. Who doesn’t love a good rags to riches story?”

Jemma turned to see the popular cheerleader named Raina leaning against her locker, attended by two of her closest friends as usual and hugging a notebook to her chest.

“I believe you mean rats to riches. Lab rats,” murmured the girl at Raina’s right shoulder, giggling.

“And to think I thought you would spend the rest of your life as a hermit in that lab of yours,” Raina said sweetly. “But you still have a choice to make, don’t you? We’ll just have to see whether our very own Cinderella flees when the clock strikes twelve.”

“You sound jealous, Raina. The role of the ugly step sister doesn’t suit you,” said a deep voice over Jemma’s shoulder. Raina’s eyes widened at the insinuation. “And who are you in this fairytale, Grant Ward?” she asked lightly, but Jemma had seen the scowl on Raina’s face before she quickly hid it with a smile.

He shrugged. “I’d like to think I’m the prince, but don’t we all? Maybe I’m just a horse. What do you think, Jemma? Maybe I'm not even fit to pull such a lovely lady's carriage.”

Her heart skipped a beat as she stared at him. The most popular boy in school couldn’t be teasing her …not in _this_ way, not in a way that made her cheeks warm with pleasure instead of embarrassment and anger. Could he? Grant had never noticed her before, except for when he’d wanted the answers from her homework.

“Oh, but the horses were mice first. You couldn’t possibly be a mouse, Grant,” Raina said as she slipped her arm through his in an unmistakable reminder of possession. “That would be _her_ boyfriend,” she murmured under her breath.

“Don’t you dare talk about Fitz about that,” Jemma hissed. Petty taunts directed toward her were one thing--she had better things to think about than cliques and the words of bullies, although the rejection of her friendship overtures from the vast majority of the student population stung more than she would ever admit-- but it was an entirely different matter once they were being thrown at Fitz, who could understand her in a way the rest of the school had never even tried. She realized that her fingers had curled into tight fists at her side. “And we’re just partners," she added quickly. "Good friends.”

So did Raina. “Oh, but I didn’t say that I was talking about Fitz, did I?” she asked sweetly. “Give him my best, Jemma.” With a final smirk tossed over her shoulder, she sauntered off with Grant.


	4. Chapter 4

It was the night of the state dinner, and Jemma was sitting at the top of the stairs ( _delicately_ , as per Radcliffe’s instructions). She took a deep breath, chewed one perfect nail until it wasn’t perfect anymore, and told herself to calm down. _Just pretend you're not going to see dozens of diplomats and barons at the bottom of these stairs, pretend it will just be Fitz..._

Fitz?

Where had that thought come from?

They were best friends, as she had told Raina. She had no reason to wonder if Fitz’s face would light up if he could see her wearing a sparkling tiara, her soft curls pinned up, and this foolish dress that Radcliffe said looked beautiful with her eyes.

Furthermore, she had no business caring if it would.

She ran her hand along the banister as she walked down; tracing its grain steadied her. Somehow, Jemma reached the bottom of the steps without tripping on the swishing silk that swirled around her ankles. Coulson was waiting for her, and she took his arm with a sigh of relief.

“The worst is over now,” he reassured her softly. “You look wonderful. Now, come this way. This is our prime minister Steven Rogers and his lovely wife, Peggy.”

Jemma smiled and inclined her head with more grace than she had known she possessed, the tension in her chest easing in response to the smile that Peggy offered. “I’m pleased to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you both.” 

Coulson had regaled her with many stories of the Genovian war hero (there was a distinct look of hero worship in his eye even now), and Peggy was the envy of every woman who knew of her (and not just because she’d managed to snag a husband whose arms looked like they could literally bench press a helicopter). It had been in all the papers when an assassin had snuck into their apartments to kill the prime minister. Peggy had disarmed and incapacitated him with her high heel and a nail file before her husband had even woken up, if the rumors were true.  

“And we’re delighted to meet you. I hear you are interested in science. What fields hold your interest?” Peggy asked.

“Biochemistry, or medicine,” Jemma said, delighted. “But I also know a bit about mechanics and engineering from my friend Fitz.”

It turned out that Peggy had spent a significant amount of time with the American inventor and scientist Howard Stark. His work was only surpassed by the current Mr. Stark, his son and the founder of the museum where Jemma had spent half of her childhood exploring. Peggy had a number of very amusing stories to tell about the scientific exploits of Mr. Stark, elder and younger, and the half hour until dinner flew by.

Despite her grandmother’s assertations during her lessons that the human body was not an appropriate topic for polite conversation, the barons and baronesses at the table seemed awfully eager to discuss their various ailments. Jemma found it very interesting, and they were more than happy to have a new listening ear and someone who wanted to know the details of their physical woes at length.

Her grandmother glanced over at Jemma—face engaged and pleasant as she conversed with a baroness— and smiled in approval.

Jemma noticed and tried to hide her grin. She thought she was doing quite well.

…Until she gestured to demonstrate the proper range of motion for an uninjured arm joint. She smelled something burning and wondered if the chef had forgotten something in the oven—then realized _it was her sleeve_.

In her animation, Jemma had accidentally dipped it into a candle. Hastily, she tried to smother it under the table cloth. It would have worked, except that she had accidentally brushed her arm against the man next to her. To her horror, the flame crackled, turning his pristine white cuff a shade of grey that was rapidly deepening to charred black.

Jemma snatched at his arm, shoved it into the nearest ice bucket, and splashed the contents of her water glass over him.

“Ahem.” She cleared her throat awkwardly and folded her hands on her lap, sending a meek, innocent smile in her grandmother’s direction. Fortunately, her grandmother was distracted. The diplomat beside her was proudly showing her pictures of his grandchildren.

 “Do you want to see?” her grandmother asked the man on her other side, holding out the pictures. He gave her a look that spoke more loudly than words possibly could and continued eating his soup. Personally, Jemma thought that getting a smile from the man, formidable under his eye patch, was a lost cause.

But Jemma’s gaffe had been noticed and not forgotten. Across the table, the beady eyes of Baron Gideon Malick stared at her scornfully. Jemma’s heart sank.

There was a clink beside her arm as a waiter set down a dish of green…stuff.

“To cleanse the palate before the next course,” Prime Minister Rogers offered helpfully in a low voice beside her.

Jemma gave him a grateful smile and placed a large spoonful in her mouth.

A moment later, her whole mouth was in pain as she rolled the freezing cold substance around with her tongue. “Oh,” she gasped, and every set of eyes at the table turned her way.

She tried to offer a reassuring smile and quietly swallow it to avoid causing further fuss, but the only result of the hasty gulp was that now she couldn’t breathe. Jemma wheezed, every breath painful as it scraped over a raw throat that felt as if it had been crusted over with ice.

“She didn’t realize it was frozen,” Peggy whispered. She gave her husband a stern look. “Go on, she must be embarrassed to death. Do the same thing!”

Steve Rogers gave his wife a pained look, but he didn’t dare to disobey. They both gulped down large mouthfuls of the green substance, their eyes simultaneously widening as they desperately fanned air into their mouths.

“To get the full effect of the cleansing flavor, you really must get a decent mouthful,” the Prime Minister said, trying and failing to disguise his cough as politely clearing his throat. “Ahem. Very…refreshing.”

Across the table, Baron Malick coughed something back that sounded suspiciously like “monkeys.”

Peggy’s shoulders straightened, her eyes narrowed, and one of her heels tapped against the floor.

Malick must have also heard the rumors. Even though there was no sign of a nail file (yet), he promptly muttered, “Bit of a cold. Excuse me.”

Her grandmother had definitely noticed that little fiasco, and she turned again to the man with the eye patch. “You know that headache you get from eating something cold too fast?” she asked with a laugh.

“No,” he said flatly.

Even though her mouth was frozen, Jemma’s cheeks burned. She took a deep breath and wondered how many courses could possibly be left. To her relief, the next and main course went smoothly. The meat was delicious, she remembered which fork to use, and the Prime Minister directed the conversation to the immensely interesting topic of his friend Dr. Bruce Banner’s unfortunate lab accident.

By the time dessert was served—Genovia’s classic pear and cheese dessert—Jemma was daring to hope that she had used up her share of bad luck.

“Thank you,” she murmured to the waiter with a smile. She picked up a grape from her plate and popped it into her mouth; too late, she noticed her grandmother’s pointed stare.

What had she done now? Surely she wasn’t supposed to eat _grapes_ with a fork and a knife?

Apparently, from the subtle gesture her grandmother made toward the utensils, she was.

Of course, the stubborn grape refused to yield under the prongs of her fork and rolled merrily off the table. With a quick glance around the table to make sure that no one was watching, she quickly slid over her chair and knelt to collect the errant grape.

That was when she felt a man’s knee connect with the small of her back; a loud thud and the clash of silverware and china on the table above her followed. Jemma slowly rose and peeked above the table.

The baron who had tripped over her was picking himself up from the table, the contents of a plate smeared all over his face. The waiter who was picking himself up from the baron’s back was holding an empty glass in one hand and hastily swiping at the man’s soaked hair with the napkin he held in the other. To top it all off, a plate had somehow been launched against the wall. The grapes had flown, leaving purple splatters on the portraits of Jemma’s ancient ancestors and a lone survivor of the casualty rolling across the plate of the man with the eye patch.

The room was silent.

Jemma rethought her adamancy that Murphy’s Law wasn’t actually a proven scientific principle.

Then, a loud guffaw broke the silence. Every head at the table turned to the man with the eye patch.

“Nicely done, Miss Simmons!” he said, popping the grape in his mouth and chuckling. “I haven’t seen a disaster of that magnitude since your grandmother’s first royal dinner party.”

The whole room erupted into laughter. Longing for the refuge of her lab, Jemma slunk further under the table.

He came to her side after the meal, telling her that he hadn’t been so amused in years and sharing in meticulous detail the story of her young grandmother’s humiliation. Apparently Coulson had been working for the queen all the way back then (albeit with a lot more hair and a lot less competence) because he also featured heavily.

It was almost enough to make Jemma crack a genuine smile.

Her embarrassment, however, was still too fresh to be smoothed away by stories of her grandmother knocking over a suit of armor and Coulson mistakenly accusing the head of security at the time (in attendance under cover to protect the queen) of espionage.  Even worse than the embarrassment was the failure that haunted her. The queen’s greatest enemy had been watching her like a hawk for mistakes, and she hadn’t made his job a challenge.

“How was it?” Coulson asked as he opened the limo door for her. After introducing Jemma to the party, he had left to survey the ground for threats.

Jemma slumped down on the back seat, tipped her head back against the seat, and groaned.

“Surely it couldn’t have been that bad,” Coulson said.

“I lit someone’s sleeve on fire, made the prime minister and his wife do monkey impressions, and painted my ancestors purple. Surely it couldn’t have been worse!” Jemma exclaimed.

She gave him the whole story on the way home. When she told him about the man with the eye patch, Coulson went surprising quiet. “Jemma, you did fine tonight. Better than fine.”

Jemma made a face at the back of his seat. “Ugh. But you know all the mistakes I made, Coulson!”

 “You got Mr. Fury’s approval. Nothing else that you did this evening matters as much as that.”

She had never seen Coulson have that much respect for anyone except the Prime Minister and his queen. “Who is he?” she asked curiously.

In his rearview mirror, he smiled at her and made a show of zipping his lips. “State secret.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jemma assumed that princess lessons were over: that her grandmother couldn’t possibly want a girl who could make so many mistakes in the span of one royal dinner on a throne. She wasn't sure if she felt relieved or disappointed: all she knew was that she had let her father down, and that left a sour taste in her mouth.

Her grandmother came to Jemma’s house herself the next morning and found her sprawled out on the couch in her pajamas, stroking a purring Frederick Sanger and turning the pages of a Popular Science Magazine.

Jemma started when she realized her grandmother was standing there, flushing bright red. “I didn't know you would come here!" she exclaimed, jumping off the sofa less than gracefully and displacing a cross cat in the process. "I didn't think you still wanted me after...well, you know. I’m sorry for ruining the dinner last night, Grandmother," she mumbled, staring down at her bare toes.

“Of course I still want you at princess lessons, Jemma. I'm afraid I can't let you out of our bargain that easily," her grandmother said  lightly, her fingers sliding under Jemma's chin and lifting it in a gentle motion that forced granddaughter's eyes to meet hers while simultaneously correcting her posture. "What defines you as a princess—or a queen—isn’t the absence of mistakes. It’s how you recover from them when you make them." She smiled, eyes bright with good humor. "Besides, I thought it was funny.”

“You found my humiliation funny?” Jemma asked with a groan, dropping the magazine and burying her head in the closest pillow.

“Wonderfully.” Her grandmother pried the pillow from Jemma’s fingers. “Now, go and get dressed. I thought we could spend the day together.”

“I would rather not do more princess stuff today, if you don’t mind,” Jemma said apologetically. Even after that fiasco, she would go back for her father's sake and because Jemma Simmons would not back down from the challenge now that she knew her grandmother still extended it; however, today the memory of laughter and flushed cheeks was still too fresh.

“Oh, I’m not here to spend time with the princess. I’m here to spend time with my granddaughter. I thought perhaps she might like to show me around the Stark museum.”

“You want to see the museum?” Jemma asked in surprise.

She nodded merrily. “The eighth wonder of the world, if Mr. Stark’s completely unbiased opinion is anything to go by. Now, run and get changed.”

So they went. The Stark Science Museum was divided by major branches: Jemma led her grandmother through the museum and pointed out Chemistry, Mechanics and Robotics, Astronomy, Geology, Chemistry, and Biology.

“Biology’s my favorite, but Fitz hates it. He says he’s perfectly fine with just seeing people’s outsides, thank you very much, but he does love the primate exhibit,” Jemma explained as they passed it. She thought of the time that Fitz had told her about when he was a child and his single mother was unable to afford the price of admission to the zoo. Instead, she had given him a stuffed monkey and the promise of “someday” because it was all she had to offer. Now, Fitz was happy to see, hear, and learn about monkeys whatever chance he got.

“You mention Fitz quite frequently,” her grandmother observed when they stopped at the food court to order lunch. She smiled knowingly. “Must be quite a heartthrob.”

“Oh, no!” Jemma exclaimed with a laugh. “He’s short and his curls stick up when he runs his hands through them while he’s upset and he argues with me about the best way to finish our projects every time I see him.”

Grant Ward was tall, dark, handsome, and every inch of him was muscle. Grant Ward was heartthrob. Fitz was…well, he was just Fitz.  Her best friend, she thought whole-heartedly, with no slight meant to Daisy.

After they finished a delicious although unhealthy and overpriced meal of hamburgers and fries (Jemma guiltily avoided all thoughts of her diet), they continued on. They looked at a variety of bacteria and virus slides through microscopes, competed against each other in a trivia game to see who could name the most constellations on the dome of the most popular Astronomy room, watched a very engaging demonstration of newfound capabilities of AI, and were sufficiently impressed by the cost an employee told them that it took to build Stark’s newest piece on display— a red and gold suit that could actually fly and looked like it flown straight out of a comic book.

Her grandmother sometimes required an explanation of the science, but her eyes were bright with interest when she asked, and Jemma was more than happy to provide it.

She gave her a tour of the children’s areas next to— as her grandmother put it— “give their brains a break.” Jemma happily shared memory after memory of hours spent here as a child while they watched children experiment with a variety of magnets and magnetic shavings at the elaborately modified sand tables, weave their own spiderwebs around nails on blocks of wood, and ride on a themed ride where each seat was inside a replica of a planet (including Pluto. Whether calling Pluto a planet was in or out of fashion, Mr. Stark was always very determined to include it).

It wasn’t just her grandmother who was beginning to feel aches and pains in her feet at that point, but they both agreed that they couldn’t skip the gift shop.

“Get anything you want,” Grandmother said with a wave of her hand and a smile.  
“I’m sure the Royal Treasury can spare a few dollars for a queen and her granddaughter to get a memento or two.”

Jemma grinned and walked slowly through the aisles, examining the merchandise on the shelves: the slivers of geodes on silver chains, the books on tree identification, the kits to build robots that were two inches tall. When she saw a plush monkey on one of the shelves, she smiled and stretched up onto her tiptoes to grab it. “I think I’ll take this, Grandma.”

Her mother was at work when Jemma came home, but the empty house didn’t affect her good mood. She hummed (very off tune, but very cheerfully off tune, which had to count for something) as she fixed herself a quick bite to eat and carried it out to the living room. Jemma was scarfing it down and texting Fitz about the new displays they had added to the Stark Science Museum when her phone rang.

“Hi, this is Jemma,” she said, hastily trying to swallow a mouthful of spinach. She almost choked on it when she heard the voice that answered.

“Hey, Jemma. It’s Grant Ward.”

Her heart thumped several beats faster. “Grant, I wasn’t expecting a call from you.”

“Well, I hope it was a pleasant surprise,” he countered easily. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the party at the beach tomorrow night, and I was wondering if you would go with me.”

“Like…a date?” Jemma asked, certain that her ears were playing tricks on her or that she had misunderstood.

His chuckle came over the phone, warm and deep. “Yeah. Exactly like a date.”

A wide grin spread across Jemma’s lips. She had been asked out on her first date and by _Grant Ward_ : Grant Ward who was renowned for his dark hair, handsome smolder, and muscles twice the size of any other guy in high school. He’d never had eyes for anyone but his current girlfriend Raina (charming, pretty, and more than a little devious) and earlier that year the girl on the softball team who wore jersey 33 (a martial arts student who’d improved him with her fitness).  He’d certainly never paid attention to the likes of Jemma: Jemma, who was smaller than all her classmates, couldn’t bat her eyelashes without making it look like she had something stuck in them, and was prone to passionate rants about science.

 Jemma’s body was practically vibrating with energy: she had to bounce up and down on the balls of her feet before she could answer calmly. “I would be delighted, Grant.”

She had to tell _someone_ , and Daisy wasn’t picking up. So, she dialed the one person who always popped into her mind when she had a joy or woe to share, no matter what it was.

“Fitz!” she exclaimed when she heard his voice on the other end of the line. “You will never guess who just asked me on a date to the party Tuesday night!”

He stayed silent for so long that she checked to make sure the connection hadn’t been lost. “Tomorrow night?” he asked finally.

 “Yes.” Jemma bounced up and down again. “It was only Grant Ward, the most popular guy at school!”

“I—I guess you won’t make the concert, then,” his voice replied quietly.

Oh.

“The concert!” She facepalmed. “I completely forgot. I’m so sorry, Fitz. I promise I’ll come to the next one, cross my heart. When do you play next?”

“I don’t know. We don’t always have one lined up. Sometimes we’re asked spur-of the moment, you know.”

“Yes, but I thought you told me had that concert you were so excited to play for booked sometime next month—”

“That concert isn’t so important, Jemma,” Fitz interrupted.

She frowned at the phone, trying and failing to read the nuances of his tone. Usually she could read his mind, but that ability was failing her now, "Fitz? You do understand, don't you? I would love to come to your concerts anytime, it's just that..." she took a deep breath and smiled, heart fluttering with excitement as visions of the date danced through her thoughts, "...tomorrow night is special."

Another pause. There must have really been something wrong with their connection this time because the words sounded hollow when his voice finally said, "Yeah, special. I get it. If you’ll excuse me, I have a big test tomorrow and need to study.”

Jemma frowned at the phone. Fitz? _Needing to study?_ “Okay. Bye,” she said belatedly as a click signaled that he had hung up. She hadn’t even had a chance to ask him if he was still coming over to the lab the next day after school.


	5. Chapter 5

Fitz didn’t come.

Jemma puttered around the lab and tinkered a bit with the drone, but in the end, she found she couldn’t concentrate. She’d never realized how much it helped when she could bounce her thoughts off Fitz and build on his. Or maybe it was just her anticipation for her date with Grant that kept her antsy. So, she decided to give up on the drone and prepare for the beach instead. Jemma chose a bright pink sundress to wear over her bathing suit and did so without casting even a single longing glance at her usual sweater and jeans.

“There,” her mom said. She tugged a final curl into place and stepped back to survey her handiwork. Jemma spun in a slow circle under her mother’s watchful eye, casting a bright, nervous smile over her shoulder at her reflection in the mirror. She had great hopes for this evening. But was it too much to hope that this evening wouldn’t just hold her first date, but also her first kiss?

“Do you think my foot will pop?” she asked her mom.

“What?”

“Like in the old movies. When a girl gets really kissed, and her foot just…pops?” She demonstrated, raising one foot and quirking her leg behind her. Jemma felt that she being a little ridiculous given that it was a purely biological impulse, but it had always been the one secret, silly wish of hers. 

Grant Ward’s car honked in the driveway, and Jemma’s heart beat ten times faster. Until this moment, she had still wondered if all Grant’s offer had been was an elaborate prank.

“You look beautiful.” Her mother leaned over to kiss the top of her head. “I hope you have fun and get your pop, darling.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

Daisy Johnson’s guest on the show tonight was Robbie Reyes: a senior with passion for justice and a leather jacket that gave off serious bad boy vibes. Daisy thought that he wore both well. Better than well, in fact.

She sternly reminded herself to focus and turned to offer the camera her most charming smile. “This is your host Daisy Johnson, and the show has a special treat for you today. Later this evening, I will be interviewing a unique guest: our very own princess, Jemma Simmons. While we wait for her, Mr. Robbie Reyes is here to tell us about his experience protesting for justice in our jail system. Mr. Reyes?”

It was her job as host to look fascinated by her guest’s story, and Daisy blessed the excuse to stare at him. She had no intention of complaining that she had to study those broad shoulders in that leather jacket longer since Jemma was running a few minutes late, but then a few minutes grew into fifteen. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. And then she was thanking Mr. Reyes and commenting on how Jemma must have had a good reason for her absence.

A _very_ good reason.

 

* * *

 

 

 

As soon as she slid into the car, Jemma’s date was off to what was technically a perfect start. Grant whistled when he saw her in her dress and handed her a bouquet of flowers; Jemma buried her nose in them and tried to giggle the way she heard Raina do when she hung on Grant’s arm in the school halls. She thought it sounded very cheesy and fake and wondered silently about the oddities of human mating behavior, but Grant rewarded her efforts with a handsome grin.

At the beach, Raina was performing with her crowd on a makeshift stage: her eyes flashed when she saw Jemma with Ward, but neither of them really noticed. Grant took Jemma out on a boat, and she savored the warm sunshine on her cheeks and the cool wind in her hair. Grant, it seemed, was savoring the sight of her as they chatted.

“The sunset was beautiful last night,” he commented.

Jemma was starting to explain the various combinations of factors that had contributed to make such a particularly colorful sunset--she had never enjoyed weather as much as biology, but she'd read a rather interesting article in a Popular Science magazine-- when she noticed Grant’s eyes glazing over.

 _I’ve spent so much time with Fitz,_ she observed, _that I’ve forgotten not every guy can keep up. Or wants to._

“Sorry. I’m boring you, aren’t I?” she said with a laugh.

Grant laughed back easily, but he didn’t deny it. Jemma decided that she had been hoping for too much when she had wished that he would and that she couldn’t hold it against him. She allowed him to change the subject back to his football exploits.

He was still talking about them as he took her hand and helped her off the boat.

“And then, our only chance to win was if I could kick—” Grant frowned as he realized that she wasn’t paying attention. “Jemma? What’s wrong?”

Jemma finished wrapping a towel around her waist and tilted her head, frowning in concentration as she tried to pinpoint the source of the buzz she suddenly heard. “Do you hear that?”

“Yeah. It’s just a helicopter. See?” Grant said, pointing at a small black dot that was the size of a bumblebee and was rapidly growing larger. He smiled and gently squeezed her hand. “Relax, Jemma. Come on, let’s go listen to the girls sing.”

She shrugged her shoulders, allowing the tension in them to evaporate, and let him to lead her over to the crowd. Nonetheless, she couldn’t shake the uneasiness that laid heavy in her stomach when she read the name of a major news company emblazoned across its side.

 _The reporters couldn’t have known I’d be here tonight,_  Jemma thought. _They must be passing over for one of those see-our-state from the air programs that they show during the commercial break—_

Full-fledged panic set in a few minutes later when she realized that the helicopter wasn’t droning on overhead. In fact, it had dropped lower and was hovering over the beach.

“Smile for the camera, Princess!” shouted the man hanging out of the side of the helicopter, cheerfully wielding a camera.

“How did they find me?” Jemma shouted over the whir of the blades. This wasn’t the first time that the press had intruded on her life, but it _was_ the first time that she didn’t have the shield of her grandmother’s polite but deterring smiles and Coulson’s firm dispersal requests to find refuge behind. She was glancing desperately around her for something to duck behind when warm fingers closed around hers. They felt like a lifeline, and she squeezed them tightly.

“Come on, Jemma!” Grant yelled, scrambling up a nearby sandbank with her in tow. She landed on her knees, sending up little puffs of sand and almost losing her flipflop, but then Grant’s strong arms surrounded her. Gently, he pulled her up and directed her into the small shed at the sand bank’s top.

“Don’t be shy, Princess! Come back!” was the last shout she heard before Grant slammed the door behind them.

“I am so, so sorry!” Jemma groaned, burying her face in her hands.

“No, it’s fine—"

“It isn’t. We were having such a good time, and then they had to come and ruin it!” she huffed, smacking the wall with her flip-flop.

He had opened his mouth to interrupt her tirade, but he wound up inhaling a mouthful of the dust raised by the sandal instead.

“No, no! Jemma, it’s okay,” he managed to say with a cough. Gently, Grant reached out to pull her left hand away from her face and warily tug the flip-flop from her right. He dropped the sandal to take both of her hands, his fingers lightly tracing the skin over her knuckles. “They’re out there, and we’re in here,” he said, his voice warm and soothing. “We can shut the world out. It’s just you and me, alone in this shack.”

Jemma exhaled a laugh, giving the rusted flag pole and mouse-gnawed fishing nets a doubtful glance. “It is a shack, all right.”

 He smiled, taking a step closer to her. “Let’s just say that it has rustic charm. I think it’s actually kind of cozy.” His voice grew low as he leaned closer, gazed into her eyes. “And there’s no one I’d rather be trapped in here with than you, Jemma.”

“Really?” Jemma whispered.

“Yeah,” he murmured, and her eyelashes fluttered closed as his mouth met hers.

Then her lips were desperately searching his for something she couldn’t even define; all she knew was that she couldn’t find it.

She wrapped her arm around his waist and drew him closer, winding her fingers just a bit tighter into his hair. Even if the passion that desperation brought to the kiss wasn’t enough to evoke whatever elusive, undefined thing that she wanted, Grant _was_  a good kisser. She felt her foot begin to rise—

And then promptly almost fell as her toes snagged in a fishing net.

“Jemma! Are you all right?” Grant made a snatch at the empty air that was five seconds too late to catch her.

“Yeah, I’m fine. But I’m stuck.” She scowled pointedly at him and then back to her ankle. As much as she hated being a damsel in distress, Grant possessing better timing and catching her would have been preferable (and much less humiliating) to him staring at her lying in the dust near his tanned feet. He obediently knelt beside her to help untangle the rope.

This was exactly why sensible people did not fall for all this romantic crap: it never turned out like the movies, and suddenly Jemma Simmons was ready to be done with all of it.

“The reporters must be gone by now,” she said. She shook the last coil of net off her ankle, shuffling back into her flip-flop. Backing away from Grant, she shoved the door open.

The reporters weren’t gone by now.

She blinked as camera lights flashed in her face. Grant stepped out beside her to shouts from the reporters, and she could just barely see enough through the blinding flashes to note that he was offering them a smile.

She whirled around to run back inside, but his fingers gripped her arm. “Wait, stay.”

Jemma forced herself to take a deep breath and nodded: obviously Grant had a plan to fix this.

“Kiss her!” a voice yelled.

Before she realized what he was doing, she felt his arm slid around her waist and yank her close. Jemma opened her mouth to protest, but her words were promptly smothered by Grant’s kiss. In vain, she struggled against the muscles that she had so admired earlier that night.

With the hand that wasn’t pinned by Grant, she worked her flip-flop off her foot and whacked him over the head. It wasn't as effective as Peggy Carter's heels, but she felt a momentary thrill of satisfaction when Grant yelped.

She ran as fast as she could in the other direction.

The sand, still retaining the warmth of the day’s hot summer sunshine, burned against her toes, but she barely noticed. Grant’s kiss had left a decidedly sour taste on her lips that she now found disgusting. Her towel almost dropped several times, and she just barely managed to snatch it back up around her waist.

 “Jemma!” a voice called.

She paused and turned to see Raina: in her haste, she hadn’t noticed that she had run straight past the her and a few of her devoted set.

"That was a rotten thing for Grant to do. We’ve got your clothes,” Raina said, holding them out.

For a moment, reason questioned why Raina would help her; Jemma figured she must be getting her revenge on Ward for bringing another date. “Thanks,” she said, snatching her clothes from Raina’s outstretched arms.

“We’ll stand look out for you!” Raina called brightly as she dashed inside the canvas changing tent.

Hastily, Jemma began struggling to get out of her bathing suit. It was still wet enough that patches of the fabric clung to her. Her fingers didn’t help, shaking with nerves as she tried to peel it off. If only she never had to leave this tent again, if only she never had to walk past those reporters, if only she never had to see Grant Ward’s handsome, _stupid_  smirk again…

It was then she heard footsteps in the sand and a murmur of “she’s got her bathing suit off,” followed by a giggle.

The next moment, the tent was flung backwards. She just barely had enough time to yank a towel around her before she was surrounded by dozens of flashes and screaming reporters.

“Go away! All of you!” she shouted at the reporters, but the cameras kept clicking. Jemma’s bare skin prickled under their eyes and the slight chill invading the night air. She searched desperately for a way to escape, but there was no gap in the ring of reporters and teenagers around her. Trying to push through would only result in losing her towel, and Jemma felt ready to cry at the thought of one more humiliation.

“Just let me go home!” she said helplessly, knowing her plea would fall on unhearing ears and already far too embarrassed to care about the way her voice cracked. “Please!”

Suddenly, unexpected mercy came in the shape of two strong arms swaddling more towels around her shoulders and guiding her away from the crowd. “All right, you’ve got your story!” Bobbi Morse’s voice yelled. “Leave her alone, you jerks.”

Her boyfriend Lance Hunter started to trail after them, but then Bobbi scowled at him and jabbed him in the ribs. Hunter yelped and glared at her, muttering something derogatory about her elbows, but he obediently shoved back each body within his arms’ reach. “Cut the crap and give Her Highness some space, yeah?” he shouted.

Jemma knew Bobbi, although not personally. Jemma was every teacher’s favorite except for the PE teacher’s: that role was firmly Bobbi’s, who won games for her team no matter what the sport was. The blonde-haired girl was the only one who offered Jemma encouraging smiles instead of mocking gestures when she was up to bat and still bothered to give her the occasional friendly pointer in the locker room. Right now, Jemma could feel her eyes welling at Bobbi’s kindness.

They took a rather roundabout route to the parking lot to lose any reporters; Jemma slid into the back seat of Bobbi’s car, gratefully for the privacy provided by the tinted windows.

“Grant picked you up, didn’t he?” Bobbi asked. In response to Jemma’s nod, she patted her shoulder sympathetically. “Well, don’t worry. I’ll grab Hunter and your clothes, and we’ll take you home.”

Huddled in the backseat for the longest ten-minute drive of her life, Jemma wanted nothing more than to listen to her best friend swear a blue streak about Grant Ward and offer her copious amounts of ice cream until she fell into a sugar coma strong enough to make her forget her woes and the fact that she was supposed to be on a diet. The moment she got home, she would call Daisy—

It hit her then.

Daisy.

She had promised to appear on Stand Up and Tweet. At 6 o’clock, exactly the time that she’d been making a fool of herself with ridiculous giggles for Grant Ward.

Jemma slid down even further under her pile of towels and wondered how many ways were left for her to be a disappointment.


	6. Chapter 6

The next day at school, Jemma tried to avoid looking at Grant Ward. However, when she was forced to, she noticed that he was distinctly not having a good day. With one of her characteristic hard, fast pitches, Bobbi Morse drove a baseball into his stomach, for which she apologized very sweetly before sending a wink in Jemma’s direction. Someone who only could have been Fitz rigged up a nasty little surprise that figuratively and literally shocked him when opened his locker. Mack, Hunter, and even Robbie gave Grant disgusted looks whenever they passed him in the hallway.

Daisy, however, was less subtle: her revenge left Grant Ward with a black eye and her with after school detention.

Jemma was guiltily aware that detention had been earned on her behalf, and she still had not an opportunity to apologize profusely to Daisy for missing the show. So, she settled down with her science homework and waited until her friend came trudging out.

Daisy walked past her without a single glance.

“Daisy, wait!” Closing her science book with a loud snap, Jemma shoved it into her bag and yanked her backpack onto her shoulders. She had to run a few steps to catch up with Daisy’s quick stride. “I am so, so sorry for missing the show!” she blurted out. “I completely forgot—"

“How could you?” Daisy snapped, stopping dead in her tracks. “I thought you were my friend.”

“I am,” Jemma whispered.

Daisy’s curls flew as she whipped her head back and forth. “No! A friend wouldn’t break her promise to me for a guy like Grant Ward. And if that isn’t bad enough, look what you’ve done to Fitz!”

“What have I done to him?”

“You know full well.” Daisy hiked her backpack up higher on her shoulders and resumed her determined stride towards home.

“No, I don’t!” Jemma shouted.

The slap of Daisy’s sneakers against the concrete stopped abruptly. She swung around to study Jemma’s face for a few long moments, and then her voice snapped the silence. “He wrote a whole darn song about you, which he was going to dedicate to you at that concert you missed because you were sunbathing with Mr. _Ward_. And in case you still need it spelled out, because apparently you really are that blind _…Fitz loves you_ , Jemma.”

She left Jemma standing in the school parking lot, open-mouthed and trying to analyze the evidence—Fitz’s every word, every smile—to see if it supported that hypothesis.

It did.

And she didn’t know what to do with that knowledge.

“Daisy?” she called.

“Yes?”

“If you’re so furious at me…why did you punch Grant Ward?” she asked. Anything to distract her from the eager light she remembered in Fitz’s eyes when she said she would come to the concert: when she misunderstood that it wasn’t just an offer from a best friend, it was an offer from a best friend who wanted to be more. Anything to distract her from how blind she’d been, and how she’d hurt him.

Daisy paused again, but this time she didn’t look back. “Grant and Raina shouldn’t be able to get away with doing that to anyone.” The toe of her sneaker wedged itself under a loose chunk of asphault, and she stared at it as if contained the answers to all the questions of the universe. “And even after everything…” she mumbled as if the words physically hurt, “I care about you, Jemma. I can’t just shut that off like a tap because you don’t anymore.”

Then Daisy wasn’t walking away, she was running; this time, Jemma’s throat ached too much to call her back.

 

* * *

 

 

Jemma’s simple request of life at this point was that it allow her to go home, distract herself with a project in her lab, and become a hermit.

But, of course, the limo was there waiting.

It didn’t take Jemma’s IQ to predict what the queen’s response would be.

“What were you thinking, Jemma?” Queen or not, that volume couldn’t be described as anything but shouting.

“Obviously, I wasn’t!” Jemma said. Her head was in her hands, but she glared through her fingers.

The queen paced the length of the room for the tenth time and only stopped to throw up her hands in irritation. “Do you know what a scandal you’ve caused kissing that boy?”

“I didn’t kiss him, he kissed me!” Jemma sprang to her feet, tired and frustrated and well aware that the queen hadn’t been listening to a word that she had said. “Do you really think that poorly of me, Queen Clarisse?” she snapped. “That I wanted to create a scandal? That I wanted to kiss Grant Ward in front of a hundred reporters?”

Her grandmother fell silent, shocked at the formal title.

“The way stink bugs produce odor is fascinating, and I left evidence of that in Grant’s gym clothes,” Jemma grumbled as proof, slumping back down on the sofa.

The fact that she hadn’t wanted to kiss Grant didn’t stop the pacing or the tirade, only the direction it took.

“Jemma Simmons, for someone who was a child prodigy, how can you be so naïve?” In that tone, naïve was clearly a politer word for dumb.

“I was a prodigy in the classroom. In my lab. Nobody ever claimed that I was one outside it,” Jemma said quietly, feeling too drained to take offense at her grandmother’s insinuations. Besides, they were true.

All last night, Jemma had laid awake and wrestled with the evidence. It could only support the hypothesis that she had been considering from the beginning and was absolutely certain of now: Jemma Simmons was not fit to be a princess.

“I know I have only been a disappointment to you, Grandmother. Right here, right now, I renounce my claim to the throne.” With these words, Jemma stood and walked toward the door, her footsteps heavy.

“Jemma!” came her grandmother’s voice.

“I’m sorry,” Jemma said softly. She didn’t turn her head: if she saw her grandmother’s face, she knew she would lose what little composure she had left.

She scurried past Coulson, who was standing on the other side of the door, without even seeing him. After Jemma had passed, Coulson sent one lingering, worried glance after her and stepped into the queen’s parlor.

“I know you heard all of that. And I gather you have something to say,” the queen said, glaring at him over the top of her reading glasses and holding up the newspaper with Jemma’s face plastered all over the front page.

“I don’t care how much of a genius Jemma is; she’s a child.” Coulson crossed his arms, unintimidated, and meeting her glare with piercing blue eyes. “That boy used her to get his fifteen minutes of fame, and she already blames herself for the whole affair. You were too hard on her.”

The queen pulled over her glasses, dropped the newspaper on the desk, and sighed. “I have to prepare a successor to the best of my ability, Coulson; any successor must understand that the mistakes of royalty are costly. I was perfectly within my rights as queen.”

“But not within your rights as grandmother,” Coulson said with quiet confidence. He then left to drive Jemma home, leaving her staring at the door. It wasn’t often that he argued with his queen, but when he did—no matter how many times she swore to herself that he wouldn’t next time— he always got the final word.

And, as usual, he was right.

 

* * *

 

Her lab had never felt so quiet, or so empty without Fitz to finish her sentences. Build on her ideas when he thought they were good and argue with her when he thought his were better. Steal sips from her tea. Make her smile and laugh and tell him secrets that she would never in a million years tell anyone else.

That was when Jemma Simmons realized that she couldn’t imagine life without Leopold Fitz. It was then she realized that ever since she’d met him, she had never even tried.

Jemma had wanted a kiss from Grant Ward, but she wanted _everything_ from Fitz. She wanted his smiles and his frowns. She wanted the musical lilt in his voice when he was excited and the thick brogue when he was tired or upset. She wanted him in his nerdy t-shirts and stained jeans that smelled of motor oil and in the favored cardigans he wore on his days off.

He had loved her.

And Jemma realized that she did too. Now, when it was too late to love him back.

The tears that she had been holding back since yesterday welled up in her eyes. Jemma folded her arms on the table, dropped her head into them, and cried.

Then, she swiped her hand across her eyes and determinedly blew her nose. She had no more time to pity herself: she had to make things right.

 

* * *

 

 

To her surprise, her grandmother came in response to her text instead of just sending Coulson.

To her even greater surprise, her grandmother—with only a slight hesitation—enveloped her in a hug. “I’m sorry, Jemma,” she whispered against her hair. “I was angry, and I didn’t stop to make sure that I had all the facts.” Then, she pulled back to place her hands on Jemma’s shoulders and smile at her. “Princess or not, you’ll always be my granddaughter. Whatever your dreams may be, I have no doubt that you will achieve them. I am proud of the young lady that you are and know that I will be proud of whoever you become.”

“Thank you, Grandmother.” Impulsively, Jemma threw her arms around her grandmother and hugged her back. Coulson winked at her over the queen’s shoulder.

“But,” the queen said slowly. “I’ve been thinking. From what I have heard of you, Jemma, you were never a child who craved the trappings of a princess. When other girls longed for fancy dresses and parties, you never did. You might never have been that fairytale princess they dreamed of being, Jemma Simmons, but you would have been a practical one. And that is what a country needs far more than a ruler who leaves her glass slipper at balls when the clock strikes twelve. Jemma, there’s still time before the ball if you change your mind. I believe firmly that you would be a brilliant princess and an even better queen.”

A smile spread across Jemma’s lips as she stared down at her feet. “That means more to me than I can say, Grandma.” Then, taking a deep breath and raising her head to meet her grandmother’s eyes, she said, “But I just don’t think that I’m meant to do it.”

“I do,” came the quiet reply. When Jemma just winced, her grandmother said, “I was sure you remembered that you would have to announce your decision at the Independence Day Ball whether you declined or accepted?” In response to Jemma’s nod, she gestured to Coulson. “He has what you requested.”

By the time that Coulson and her grandmother were pulling out of the driveway, Jemma was striding briskly down the sidewalk in search of Daisy and bearing a peace offering.

She found her at the basketball court, lazily shooting hoops.

Jemma took a deep breath and called her name.

Daisy glanced up with a wary look and caught the basketball as it bounced back to her. She threw it again, rather hard if the resounding _BONG_ of the ball hitting the hoop was any indication. “What is it, Jemma?”

“I wanted to say again how sorry I am for hurting you. And that you were right.”

That at least earned her a reaction: a raised eyebrow. “About?”

“Fitz. He does love me, and…I love him back,” Jemma blurted out.

Daisy’s stony glare crumbled, and her eyes lit up. “Finally! I knew you’d figure out eventually, Jemma!” She started to thrust out her arms as if about to hug her; they dropped back to her sides abruptly as she remembered that she was still supposed to be mad.

 “Is he…is he still talking to you?” she asked, studiously casual. The shot she proceeded to miss, however, belied that her attention was not focused on basketball.

“No. But I have a peace offering. For you both.” Jemma handed her one of the invitations that Coulson had dropped off. “Daisy, I would like to invite you as my special guest to the Genovian Independence Day Ball—”

Daisy grabbed it and squealed, all offenses and the basketball now rolling into the street forgotten. “Jemma!”

“—Where I will be announcing that I can’t claim the throne.”

“Jemma,” Daisy said in quite a different tone. She tilted her head, staring at Jemma in confusion. “Why not?”

“All I’ve done when I’ve tried to be a princess is hurt everyone—my grandmother, you, Fitz.” Jemma sighed and played with the edge of her sweater instead of meeting her friend’s eyes.

“Jem.” Daisy’s voice was gentle now, and its earnestness insisted that Jemma meet her gaze. “Everyone makes mistakes—not just princesses.”

She grimaced. “Yes, but everyone doesn’t make them so… _publicly_ as princesses.”

“You can’t give up, Jemma. Just think of the opportunity you have—all the good you could do!”

“For Internet transparency?” she asked, a small smile twitching at the corners of her lips.

“Well, yeah, but not just for that. Think of the influence you would have to support increased funding for science programs. And to show all the little nerds all over the country just how cool their interests can be. You have the power to affect change! How many teenagers have that?” Daisy reached for her hand and squeezed it. “ _That_ is big, Jemma.”

“I know that far too well,” she replied with a sigh. “That’s why I…I need more time to think.”

Daisy nodded and drew back her hand, happening to catch a glimpse of her watch in the process. Her eyes widened. “Oh, crap! My dad got home from work ten minutes ago, and I was supposed to meet him.” She snatched up her backpack from where it lay on the asphalt and darted into the street, scooping up her basketball as she went. Then she paused and smiled over her shoulder at Jemma. “You’d make a great princess. And a great queen someday,” she said softly before she was off running again.

 

* * *

 

 

“Fitz.”

“Jemma.”

The crickets were chirping; the sound carried loudly on the otherwise silent, still night air as they stared at each other.

Fitz didn’t take one step further than his doorway. His curls were tousled, and he had dark circles around his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept one wink last night.

 _That was because of me,_ Jemma thought painfully. “I owe you an apology.”

“Nothing to apologize for. Before it all, I was all you had. Now you don’t need me, and you can have any friends like. Friends who have popularity, and money, and…” Fitz faltered, gesturing awkwardly with one hand. “…Muscles. Everything I don’t have.”

“That isn’t it at all,” Jemma said, only to realize five seconds later that there had been a grain of truth to his words. He could see the realization in her eyes, and he winced. It was such a visual reminder of the truth, even if he’d already known it.

“No, Fitz!” she yelped. All she wanted was to erase that hurt from his eyes, but instead she was increasing it. “That isn’t what I meant. Yes, I was dazzled by Grant, but I never intended to stop being your friend even while I liked—thought I liked—him. And I know now how wrong I was to ever chose him over you. Please, let me make it up to you.” She stepped forward and pressed the invitation to the Genovian Independence Day Ball into his hand. “Here,” she said and smiled, endowing the word with warmth and hope. “Please come, Fitz.”

He stared down at it for a long, silent moment, then shook his head stiffly. “You don’t have to invite me. If you think you need to just make it all better with a favor, you don’t.”

Her heart sank, but Jemma stubbornly refused to give up. “I know I can’t fix everything, but I can do this much. And I want to. Can’t you understand, Fitz?”

“No!” he barked suddenly, making her jump. He turned away and ran his hands through his curls, taking a deep, shaky breath. “Can’t _you_ understand?” he pleaded, his tone harsh. “I don’t want an invitation that you gave me to ease your conscience and make me feel good about myself because my loving you before you were a princess has been rewarded, to leave us with a “happy ending” so we can go on and you can eventually forget about me for someone better. I don’t want a token.” All the fight evaporated from his shoulders, his voice cracking. “Not from you, Jemma.”

Her heart ached. She heard in his silence that he did not want a token because he wanted _everything_ from her: if only she had the words to tell him that she felt the same, that she could never forget him, that there was no one better, that she loved Leopold Fitz and always would. But even if she had the words, he wouldn’t believe her. “Fitz, I am so sorry,” she whispered, squeezing her hands together so he couldn’t see how they shook. “It was a mistake, one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I never meant to hurt you—”

“No, you don’t have to explain,” Fitz said quietly, his eyes staring into hers as if he never wanted to look away. Daringly, his fingers reached out and closed around her hand. “I understand.”

 “Oh, Fitz—” she breathed. The relief and love that flooded her mind made her brave, and she reached up with her other hand to indulge her wish to run her fingers through his messy, perfect, lovely curls. She thought that maybe, just maybe, she wanted to taste the sweetness of forgiveness on his lips…

“I understand what’s important to you,” Fitz finished quietly. His hand curled her fingers around the invitation, then the door was softly but firmly closed in her face.


	7. Chapter 7

It was the day of the Ball that Jemma reached a new conclusion.

How could she get up on a stage and announce to Genovia that she was throwing their country to the dogs (well, to Baron Malick, but that was basically the same thing)? How could she announce to her idol and her husband the prime minister that she was giving up? How could she look into the faces of her grandmother, Coulson, and Daisy, so sure that she would change her mind and do what they thought was the right thing, then announce the opposite?

She couldn’t.

So, Jemma Simmons did what she always did: she wrote out a detailed plan. Her favorite science teacher, Mrs. Weaver, had moved across the state to accept a better paying position. Jemma still had her address: if she bought a bus ticket, she could stay in Mrs. Weaver’s spare bedroom until she could figure out some other living arrangement (and she could tutor students in the district after her own school hours to earn a little so she could pay rent for the use of the room). Mrs. Weaver could get Jemma into the high school where she worked at for the remaining two months of school (Jemma was graduating this year, a year or two early as a result of the grades she’d skipped), and then Jemma could enroll in college. With her grades, any one of them would probably accept her. Then she could stay on campus in a dorm, get a scholarship and participate in a work-study program to help pay for her expenses…

She wasn’t sure how she’d get Mrs. Weaver to say yes to harboring a runaway minor because no matter her mental age, her physical one was still only fifteen (sixteen in two weeks). Jemma figured that she would have plenty of time on the bus ride to form a suitable lie or argument.

Her plan was perfect, really, but for one thing: it didn’t have her mom, or Daisy, or…Fitz.

Jemma was stuffing as much of her science equipment as she could fit into one backpack when she spotted the stuffed monkey from the museum gift shop. She picked it up and hugged to her chest before reluctantly setting it back down.

She couldn’t take it. It would only remind her of Fitz.

Oh, who was she kidding? No matter how much the memories hurt, she never wanted to forget Fitz.

Jemma grabbed the monkey again and stuffed it into her backpack. Snatching it and Frederick Sanger’s carrier up, she darted for the door…

And paused as she spotted a new book on her desk, a note lying on top. Curiously, she picked it up: her grandmother must have left it when she and Coulson had dropped off the invitations. _I know you won’t be sixteen for two weeks,_ the note in her grandmother’s flowing script read. _But I thought you deserved this now._

Jemma, curious, grabbed it and crammed it into her bag to inspect later. She took the steps two at a time, anxious that she wouldn’t miss the next bus. She reached the stop and purchased her ticket with about twenty minutes left to spare. To distract herself from the nerves that coiled themselves into a tight pit in her stomach, Jemma found herself unzipping her backpack and taking out the book. She opened it and found that the first page was filled with writing: her breath caught in her throat when she saw the signature at the bottom. As she breathlessly settled in to read, the clink of change as customers bought tickets, the sounds of wheels on rolling suitcases clacking, and the footsteps of people in a hurry slowly faded.

 

_My dear Jemma,_

_If you are reading this, it is your sixteenth birthday. (This journal is for you, to write your most sacred and wonderful thoughts.) It is customary in our family to pass on a piece of wisdom on such a date. I was once told that I would never regret any mistakes I made as much I would regret the knowledge that I had never tried._

_Jemma, don’t let the fear of mistakes torment you the way it has me. Any person would doubt their ability to rule a country. Anyone without doubts is either insane or an egomaniac and most definitely is not fit to sit on the throne. The mark of a true ruler is not that they have fears; it’s that they don’t allow those fears to hold them back from becoming who they were meant to be. They might struggle at first, but anyone who was meant to be on that throne (such as you, dear girl) will find their footing in time._

_It is not as customary to pass on a second piece of wisdom, but I trust our ancestors will not roll over in their graves. I have realized from the stories that people expect princesses to wear tiaras, to look pretty, and to live happily ever after. I know from watching my mother that it isn’t. And as I watched her rule, she gave me the piece of advice that I determined it was essential for a daughter of mine someday to know: it’s a real job. It’s a real job performed by a real person with real strengths and weaknesses._

_My dear daughter, you will do your job well. You will greet this newest challenge as you do every other: with intelligence, with determination, with courage._

_You will be a perfect princess._

_Love, Your Father_

 

She was blinking away tears when a hand on her shoulder hesitantly nudged her out of her thoughts.

“Hey, miss,” the bus driver asked. “You okay? And I see you have a ticket—are you getting on?”

At that moment, Jemma Simmons made up her mind. “No, Sir,” she said, determinedly gathering up Frederick Sanger and her bag in her arms. “I’ve changed my mind.”

“No refunds for the ticket,” he reminded her, and she nodded. Her choice was made: no going back.

Except, now Jemma faced a serious dilemma: she could never get to the consulate in time on foot. It was then she remembered this particular bus stop was only a mile from the garage where Fitz worked: where Lola was sitting.

She was panting by the time she made it to the garage, her back bruised from the pack of lab equipment that had been banging against it. It didn’t help either that her arms were full of crated cat, who was rocking the carrier back and forth with his squirming and escape attempts.

“Hey, Jemma,” Mack said, eyeing her as she raced up. He had been cool toward her, offended on his friend’s behalf, since she had told Fitz that she couldn’t go to the concert because she had a date with Grant.

“Mack,” she said, forcing the words out because she didn’t have time to catch her breath. “I need to borrow Lola.”

 

* * *

 

 

Not too long after, Jemma realized why Lola was in for another bout of repairs.

“Come on, come on!” she urged through gritted teeth, working desperately, but there was a reason why her interest was biochem and mechanics was Fitz’s arena. The stubborn engine didn’t offer so much as a rumble. Unfortunately, the sky did.

Jemma slumped down in the leather seat as a rain drop splashed off her nose. They pattered faster and faster against Lola’s seats and Jemma’s head until both ladies were soaked. Daisy would be furious, and undoubtedly Steve, too, but all Jemma could still think about was the silence that would be reigning in the room when she didn’t appear. At least, until Baron Malick stood up to claim—

Then, she heard a car horn beep. She pulled her limbs out of the fetal position she had curled into on the seat and sat up to see a very familiar limo.

Coulson stepped over to the car and froze, his brows knit together as he stared down at Lola. Clearly, he recognized that this wasn’t her mother’s car: Lola bore no resemblance whatsoever to a 1989 Suburban.

“Daisy lent it to me,” Jemma offered. _Well, she would have. If she’d known._ That thought wasn’t enough to keep the guilty pink tint off her cheeks; she was grateful for the dark provided by the overcast sky.

Then Coulson’s gaze traveled up to her, and the frown deepened.

“You wouldn’t happen to be running away now, would you, Jemma?”

“Me?” she squeaked. “No, of course not!” Nervously, she twirled a damp, limp curl around her finger, then gathered up her courage and glanced up at him with a hopeful smile.

“I’m going to a ball.”

A smile spread across Coulson’s face, and he opened the back door of the limo.

As he dropped her off in front of the marble steps that had never looked so high or intimidating, she shoved a plastic bag and an address scribbled on a piece of paper into his hands. She hastily explained her request, and Coulson offered her a bright grin and a nod.

 

* * *

 

 

Fitz was trying to work on his homework, but even on the best of days, it had never held the allure that it had for Jemma. Today, at the very hour that he could have been attending a ball with Jemma, his mind kept wandering from the equations on the page. Finally, he tossed his pencil down on his desk and used his toes to push his swivel chair back from the desk with a huff. He buried his face in his hands, allowing his fingers to rake down his cheeks.

He had made a mistake. He kept seeing Jemma's soft, chestnut brown eyes and the hopeful curve of her lips, then the way they had fallen in the few seconds before he had closed the door. No matter how she had hurt him, he never wanted to hurt her. Ever. But he couldn't bear to have one last night--beautiful and shimmering and invigorating in a way that previously only science had been because _she_ would be there-- and have it knowing that it _would_ be the last, that her smiles and touches would ultimately be an act of closure for them both and a goodbye. What he felt seemed an awful lot like withdrawal, but...

 _Best to go clean turkey,_  he thought, biting his lip so hard that he winced. Best _to feel the pain in all its intensity now rather than draw it out._

Then, the sound of the Tardis landing interrupted his thoughts (he’d programmed the doorbell with sound effects to his mum’s minor annoyance).

“Coming!” he called and padded out to the door. When he opened it, his brow furrowed in confusion: no one was there. Then, he glanced down and saw a plush monkey, with a small embossed card hanging around its neck.

He crouched to pick it up, curiously reading the card. “I’M SORRY.”

And he understood what she wasn't saying because she was Simmons and he was Fitz. They didn't need words. It wasn't just a monkey; it was a promise.

A smile threatened to stretch his lips into a grin, and he allowed it.

“Mom!” he bellowed. Mrs. Fitz glanced up from the bills in time to see her son skid around the corner into the kitchen, a stuffed animal clutched to his chest and his socked feet sliding just slightly on the slick floor. “Where’s my tie?”


	8. Chapter 8

The queen’s heart beat slightly faster with hope as the door opened, then sank as she realized the interruption was just the arrival of a tardy minor baron.

At this point, waiting for granddaughter was futile. Jemma wasn’t coming, and there was a crowd waiting curiously, expectantly. She couldn't delay this a moment longer.

Despite the elegant lightness of her slippers, each footstep had never felt as heavy as the ten that the queen took up to the podium. Clarisse took a silent moment to stifle her disappointment and compose her thoughts; then, she took a deep breath.

“My granddaughter--" 

 At that moment, Jemma skidded across the platform, sending chilly water droplets flying at everyone who was within eight feet.

“—has arrived,” the queen finished with a relieved smile and a graceful gesture toward Jemma. “Some unfortunate circumstances tonight have caused her a delay—I’ll let her explain.”

Jemma wondered if she was the only one who heard the warning underlying those last words. She sucked in a deep breath and stepped up to the podium, giving a slight wave to the crowd.

There was Daisy— hair falling in chestnut curls and wearing a gorgeous pink gown—with Robbie Reyes on her arm (somehow she’d managed to coax him out of the trademark leather jacket and into a tux). Her head was tilted as she stared at Jemma’s dripping sweater and jeans in confusion.

There was her mother: her brow furrowed with concern because Jemma was soaked, although the wrinkles in her forehead relaxed slightly when she determined that her daughter was safe and sound.

There was Peggy Carter, smiling at her expectantly and unfazed, as if a princess arrived to a ball sopping wet every day.

There was Gideon Malick, smirking as he studied her standing on the platform so small and bedraggled: a smirk that said, _I have the throne of Genovia in the bag._ His gaze traveled up her dripping body and landed on her face: Jemma met his stare and raised her chin. As her first-grade teacher had learned when she had told Jemma that she was too small to understand the third-grade science book she was reading in her free time and should read a picture book about a dog named Spot instead, _no one_ estimated Jemma Simmons.

 _“Um,_ hi. My ride broke down, and I got stuck in the rain—” Now it wasn’t just Daisy, the only person in the world who knew her better than Fitz, who was staring at her as if she had just delivered that excuse in the most unconvincing way that they had ever heard.

“I’ve always been a terrible liar. So I guess I’ll just have to tell the truth,” Jemma blurted out. “I guess I got cold feet about speaking in front of you all and saying what I wanted to say…And then, well, I discovered that I didn’t really want to say it anymore.”

Now the stares she was getting were of confusion. Gideon Malick’s face was twisted, unsure if it should be smug or concerned.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to organize the tangle of words and sentences in her brain into something cohesive. She never could do anything spur of the moment: preparation was she clung to, and all she’d had time to scribble on the ride to the consulate was an incredibly sparse outline on the back of a wrinkled napkin that Coulson had dug out of his pocket. Jemma gripped the podium, steadying herself physically as well as mentally. She only had one chance to get this right…

“When my grandmother told me that I was heir to Genovia, I approached the next several weeks of being princess as an experiment,” she began. “And I am very familiar with experiments, but this one didn’t take place in my lab. There were uncontrollable variables, and I quickly formed a hypothesis. That I was out of my depth and would never be fit to be the ruler of a country.” Jemma stared out at the sea of faces—her friends and family’s faces lost in the blur of silk and strangers and the hot lights that reminded her too much of reporters’ cameras that day on the beach— and her heart beat faster in her chest.

Then, her heart stopped completely because part of the blur resolved into clear, brilliant blue eyes and messy curls.

He had come.

 Shuffling through the doors, hands stuffed awkwardly in his suitcoat pockets, was Fitz.

His eyes rose from the floor to meet hers, the uncomfortable look on his face melting into a smile. He looked as if the slightest doubt that she wouldn’t succeed had never, ever crossed his mind. Jemma found that as she exhaled and smiled back, her doubts quieted, too.

“Then, I thought about Thomas Edison,” she continued, pretending that she was explaining her decision to Fitz alone. He nodded along as if she was. “What if he had given up the first time he failed to invent a successful lightbulb? Or the fifth time, or the fiftieth time, or the five hundredth time? What if the scientists who invented television, indoor plumbing, pasteurization, and pace makers did? Imagine all the people that they could have helped…but didn’t. Because they gave up. Because they couldn’t stand to make mistakes, even when in the end, they could have helped thousands, even billions of people.”

And then, with confidence, she tore her eyes away from Fitz’s smile and allowed them to roam over the room. To her surprise, she found that the words and a smile came easily. “Because that’s what it’s really about. What scientists do in the lab is to help the people outside. To change the world!” she exclaimed, remembering the comfortable scrawl of her father’s handwriting, the way the paper that he had held felt in her hands. “And it’s the same with the throne,” Jemma continued. “Maybe I haven’t perfected all the little details of which spoon to eat with or what constitutes polite conversation, but what really matters are the decisions that affect what happens outside the palace walls. Because outside the palace walls is what truly matter: you, the people of Genovia. And that’s why I chose to accept the title of Jemma Mignonette Grimaldi Simmons Renaldo.”

And, they were all clapping and beaming at her. It wasn’t just Fitz, just Daisy, just her mother: It was Genovia. It was Genovia clapping proudly for its princess.

Except, of course, for Gideon Malick. He was glowering, and the storm cloud in his eyes only grew darker when Peggy Carter Rogers murmured something to him about how hopefully he hadn’t already ordered his royal stationery.

Her grandmother stepped back onto the stage, draping a royal robe around Jemma’s shoulders and placing a tiara on top of her head.

“This was my first tiara,” she explained with a smile.

“You had it all ready?” Jemma asked. “But how did you know that I would—”

Her voice trailed off, and her grandmother gently brushed back a wet, stringy stand of Jemma’s hair from her face. If it was unusual for a queen to display affection so publicly during a state ceremony, no one noticed: this ceremony had already proved to be anything but usual. In the crowd, Coulson nodded his approval.

“Because you remind me of someone I know,” the queen said with a smile.

That smile was suggesting she should know the answer, but the adrenaline still coursing through her veins was rather heady and making it difficult to think. “Who?”

“Me.”

Then, Jemma noticed that Radcliffe and Aida were hovering off stage, and her grandmother quickly hustled her over to them. Radcliffe wielded a blow dryer like a gun and had Aida hand him his tool one by one as he asked for them. Within no time, Jemma’s curls were soft and dry, falling down just fair enough to touch the curve of her shoulders. Her dress—pure white with gold beads—swished around her ankles as she walked out to meet the queen on the dance floor. She took her grandma’s gloved hand, and together they walked onto the bare circle of floor ringed with Genovian representatives and the American guests.

The Prime Minister stepped forward and bowed to the queen. He placed his hand on her waist, drawing her into the traditional dance.

Jemma stood alone, waiting. She couldn’t resist toying with fabric of her gloves, her stomach tying itself  in knots. She hadn’t been told what she should do during the dance if no one stepped forward to dance with her. Maybe Fitz would be too shy, or maybe he was still angry with her…

The next moment, he was shoved into the circle by Daisy. He just barely avoided tripping, and she could see the veins in his throat as he swallowed hard.

Jemma smiled at him and stepped forward. _Follow my lead_ , she thought because this was Fitz, and they didn’t need words. Gently, she reached for his hand and placed it on her waist. She slowly began to sway back and forth; at first, his body was stiff and difficult to guide, but then she felt the muscles in the small of his back ease under her fingers. He leaned into her embrace, into the essence of her, and began to move with ease. Then—staring into her eyes, conscious no longer of the crowds and only of her smile— Fitz took the lead.

Her body swayed in perfect, blissful harmony with his, their footsteps flowing as naturally as thought or the strains of music that surrounded them.

Then she tripped over his foot.

 He tried to catch her and almost fell over himself.

With that, it was if whatever spirit of grace had possessed their bodies had departed, leaving only Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz tangled up in each other’s arms, laughing.

And as Jemma stared into his beautiful eyes and listened to his incredibly inventive curses on whoever invented dancing, she thought that it was perfect.

Daisy danced past them. Well, Daisy steered Robbie Reyes past them. Jemma suspected that it was so she could check up on her and Fitz.

Sure enough… “Aww, you guys made up!” she said, beaming at them and then at Robbie. Suddenly, her eyes widened.

Jemma followed her glaze over Robbie’s shoulder and saw Coulson weaving through the crowd, making his security rounds. Except…he had Daisy’s foster mother Melinda May on his arm?

“Excuse me, Robbie,” Daisy said, slipping out of his arms and walking over to Coulson. “Steve?” she asked hesitantly.

Jemma’s mouth dropped. _Steve?_ Daisy’s foster dad Steve, the one who was so often away…?

“Daisy.” Coulson took a deep breath. “I couldn’t tell you before, but I am the head of the queen’s security. When she and Jemma returned to Genovia, I planned to take Melinda to my home there.”

Daisy blinked and turned to Melinda. “Did you know about his job?” she asked, pointing at Coulson.

Melinda nodded.

Daisy’s eyelashes started blinking rapidly. “I understand. Well, you’ve been the best foster parents I’ve ever had. I-I felt at home with you, which is more than I can say for anywhere else. Thank you for—”

Coulson stepped forward, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Daisy, you don’t understand. We want to take you with us,” he said gently. “There’s a bedroom all ready for you in Genovia to decorate and fill with all your computer junk however you want.”

Then, slowly, a smile spread across Daisy’s face, and she looked ready to cry for an entirely different reason. “You—you’re not going to leave me?” _Like everyone else._ “You want me to come with you?”

He nodded. “Is that okay?”

“Of course!” Daisy exclaimed. “I mean, it might be a lot of fuss with the foster agency crossing countries…But I would love it. I won’t even have to say goodbye to Jemma. That’s awesome, Steve!”

“I think now would be a good time to tell you that my name is actually Philip. You can call me Phil or Coulson…but if you would like, I’d much prefer Dad.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope, which Daisy accepted and opened curiously.  Her hand flew to her mouth as she stared at the adoption papers, wide-eyed.

Coulson toyed with his hands, glancing from them back up to Daisy with nervous eyes. “I want you to know that you don’t have to say yes if you don’t want to sign those papers. We won’t pressure you, and you don’t have to worry about hurting our feelings. We want this to be right for you. This is your choice, Daisy. What do you say?”

Daisy threw her arms around him and stopped trying to hold back her tears as she nodded into his shoulder. “I say yes,” she whispered. “Dad.”

Jemma and Fitz looked at each other and grinned in delight, then simultaneously realized that they were watching a moment that was intensely personal (despite the fact that it was occurring in the middle of a crowded ballroom).

“It’s a bit stuffy in here,” Jemma said.

Fitz nodded. “C’mon, let’s go get some fresh air.”

 

* * *

 

 

Hand in hand, they wandered out to the gardens. Even though the day had been sultry and moist from the approaching thunderstorm, its passing had left the air crisp and cool. Jemma breathed in deeply.

It was then she gasped.

“What?” Fitz asked, alarmed.

“Lola.”

“Lola?”

“I borrowed her without Daisy’s permission, trying to get here. She broke down, then the rain started, and I couldn’t get the top up. I was soaked, and so—so was she. Fitz…Daisy said that her foster dad gave Lola to her. In her own words, it was his beloved baby,” her words became almost a whisper. “And guess who picked me up from the middle of the street?”

“I’m guessing Coul—” Fitz’s eyes widened.

Jemma nodded and groaned.

“Well, you’re a princess now, yeah?” Fitz asked, placing a hand on her back and massaging it the way he always had done when she was stressed in the lab. “You can afford to compensate him. Besides, Lola got her injuries while in the service of the heir to the throne.”

“This isn’t funny, Fitz.”

 “No, it isn’t funny at all when a hero is wounded in the line of duty,” he intoned solemnly. “What award shall we bestow upon her?”

Jemma giggled in spite of herself. “Oh, Fitz,” she said fondly, poking his chest with her elbow. His deadpan expression quickly slipped, revealing a wide grin.

A large yawn escaped Jemma’s lips before she could stop it, and she realized just how quickly her battery was draining after all the night’s excitement. Shyly, she moved a little closer to Fitz and slipped her arm around his waist; when he didn’t stiffen, she rested her head on his shoulder.

“May I have this dance?” Fitz asked, to her surprise.

“I thought you hated dancing!”

“To a stuffy waltz, yeah!” He reached into his suitcoat pocket, his fingers fumbling slightly as he pulled out his phone and clicked play on the recording titled “Chemistry.” “Much better,” he murmured shyly as the strains of music wafted out on the night air.

And it just felt right: swaying gently to the music, her head on his shoulder and hand tucked into the warm curve of his waist, talking about the hybrids she wanted to cultivate in the castle flower garden, and just wait until she could use her new budget on expensive ingredients to make him the best sandwich of his life (how did a prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella with just a hint of pesto aioli sound?)—and, oh, crap, before she realized what she was saying, she was telling him how much she had missed him.

He paused. Then he drew back to look at her face, crystal blue eyes studying her as if he could still find something new and beautiful in the face he had studied so many times before. “I missed you, too, Jemma.” His fingers shyly brushed a curl back from her cheek and lightly traced her jaw, sending shivers down her spine.

She stared back into those hopelessly blue eyes that were saying more clearly than any words that he loved her, and she wondered how she had never seen it before.

And she felt the way her heart leaped at the thought, saying more clearly than any words that she loved him back, and it seemed equally impossible that she had never realized it before.

Her lips met his, soft and warm and sweet.

And Jemma’s foot popped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are at the end! I wrote an epilogue, but then it took on too much story of its own. :p So a one-shot sequel will be following soon. A HUGE thank you to everyone who's read and commented on this fic!


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